MIDDLE INCOME RICHARD'S
Third Millennium Almanack
===============================
An e-zine published every now and again
via the Internet, which should, in the coming
thousand years, save a few wads of paper
and spare a whole bunch of trees.
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Number 4, Latest August
In the 1st year of the 21st century
(c) 2001 Rich Limacher
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Lately I've been concentrating
rather heavily on several different
focuses. Which is to say,
my mind is wandering.

A brand-new way to power automobiles. Everyone agrees
there's only so much fossil fuel, so when do we start
"inventing" here? When the last dollop of crude oozes into
the final open vat of the last working refinery on earth?

Let's guess who'll own the majority stock in that oil
company: someone named Bush.

$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$

Richard's 80/20 Guide for Working with the Public:
80% of your customers arrive 20 minutes before you're
scheduled to go home.

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Today's Rule to Live By:

Distrust each and every letter you receive that starts with
the word "frankly."

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Too early to wed makes your lawyer healthy, wealthy, and
wise.

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I'm still hesitating in my feelings of being free to contact
your office if I have any questions.

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Tomorrow's Little Story:

THEY SUCCEEDED
by

C. C. Writers
(c) 2001

In the waning years of healthy life on Earth, the United
Principalities of America and Eurasia spent more than
fifty-five trillion yen on a very controversial manned
mission to Mars. An earlier robot probe had detected
something quite curious beneath the planet's outer crust.

This was controversial because the general, more universal,
feeling was that the money would be much better spent
searching for another more habitable planet.

After some unusual problems and delays, the space explorers
returned to Earth with their discovery intact, and they were
immediately quarantined for fear of unleashing yet another
unforeseen health hazard upon the sickened sphere. But this
particular discovery was so unusual that the U.P.A.E.
President herself was soon transported to the base hanger
and quarantined as well.

She was ushered through a labyrinth of protective shields
and then through an airlock to the innermost chamber. What
she beheld defied description. It appeared to be,
incredibly, "man made."

But all three shifts of attending scientists were completely
baffled by what it was, or could possibly be. It was some
"thing," someone began to think, that eons ago might
have been radioactive. By the time the President got there,
the consensus was that it wasn't any kind of radioactivity
produced by the sun, for example, or by any other known
force in the universe. It seemed as though this thing may
possibly be what nuclear waste becomes after several billion
years.

Curiously, it was not cylindrical in shape, nor spherical,
nor rod-like, nor anything else that is usually the shape of
nuclear waste from reactors on Earth. It was instead
rather flat. It was also rather broad and perhaps tall. It
looked, for all known appearances, like a sheet of
fossilized newspaper.

Upon much closer electronmicroscopic examination, it was
also determined that this "sheet" contained other unnatural
phenomena: curious markings, for example, upon what looked
like embedded tape. So, prior to the President's arrival, a
score of linguists were called in to try and decipher these
markings. After examining every atom and ion in, over,
under, around, and through the thing--yielding nothing--the
serendipitous accident happened when a security officer
accidentally flipped the switch on an old electromagnet.

"We think it's a disc," said the lead linguist. "We believe
it contains some type of auditory recording."

"You don't mean... Martian language?"

"Yes, Madam President, we do."

The linguists had done their homework and, within a
relatively short period of time, thought they'd succeeded in
"breaking the code," which is why they requested the
President to witness this in person. What they thought they
were hearing was some type of oral history--repeated many
times over and using many different modes of expression but
with one seemingly consistent theme--about the latter days
of a Martian civilization. They thought it was a revelation
about invention and progress, commerce and industry, but
ultimately of poison and death.

"We think, Madam President," the lead linguist said, "that
this is what's left of a misfired outer space probe which
was supposed to leave Mars and journey to a neighboring
planet."

"Which one?" the President asked.

"We're not sure, but we think they were trying to reach
'another air.'"

"How long ago?" she wondered.

"Using our best vasir dating methods, we estimate this
'disc' to be somewhere in the range of five billion years
old."

"Yes, Madam President," said another linguist. "We think
this 'voice recording' was made to seek entry or beg asylum
on whatever planet it might land."

"And we also think this wasn't the only probe. We think
there were many others."

"But here's the truly interesting part, Madam President,"
the lead linguist continued. "The recording mentions being
accompanied by living embryos. We think they were trying to
create some type of future habitat on a different planet by,
quite literally, scattering seeds."

"Does that mean," she gulped, "WE are their spawn?"

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When the gale-force of technology hits,
you're either clear as the windshield
or dead as the bug.

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Richard's First Full Law of Trash Bag Changing:
When you set it down outside the can,
it falls the wrong way.

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Today's Useful Internet Link:

http://www.usps.gov/ncsc/lookups/lookup_ctystzip.html

Yes, the U.S. Postal Service strikes again. Only this time,
no one gets machine-gunned and no mail stays undelivered.
This is a very handy website!

You can type in any U.S. village or town or specific address
and get the ZIP code. Or else you can find a listing of all
the ZIPs contained in a single city. Or, you can get the
ZIP+4 code for any U.S. address. Not only that, but also
the "Carrier Route," "County," "Delivery Point," and "Check
Digit." (Good heavens. What in the world is a "Check
Digit"? Well, it's probably only something you need if you
send out bulk mail or something.)

But there's more! How about, for businesses and business
addresses, a hyperlink to Yellow Pages (dot) com? You can
search by "Name of Business," "Type of Business," by "City"
or "State," or even "Nationwide." You can also search by
"Category" such as: "Clothing and Fashion," "Computers and
Electronics," "Legal Services," "Medical and Dental," "Pets
and Vets," "Sports and Recreation," and so on.

But, get this. There's even more yet! You can search for
businesses internationally! "By Region," for example, such
as "Africa" or "Middle East." And there is also an
"Advanced Search."

Middle Income Richard tried this. Here's what I found on a
search for oil companies in the Middle East: "Shamco
International."

Yes, "Shamco."

It's located in Abu Dhabi, UAE, and it offers "a wide range
of services and products to our clients throughout the
region."

What, like household oil and lawn mower gasoline?

Nah, pipelines!

I was thinking maybe I could import my own gas and save a
lot of money at the pump. "Cut out the middleman," so to
speak. (I.e., Bush!)

It's no secret that one of our most memorable ancestors, Ben
Franklin, got his first real "break" in the media by giving
up trying to pander to the tastes of the more traditional
publishers of his time--and just inventing that "break" on
his own. He published a simple one-page periodical called
"Poor Richard's Almanack" and sold it along the streets and
rivers of the colonies for a penny apiece. And it thrived
as a business for the next twenty-five years. So now, some
two-hundred and sixty-nine years later, you get "Middle
Income Richard's 3rd Millennium Almanack" selling along the
buy-ways and Java-streams of the Internet for a buck a copy.

At least, that's the plan.

For the moment, of course, this is free. That is, unless
you suddenly develop pangs of conscience, and for that you
might find immediate relief by snail-mailing a Yankee
greenback to Ben's most dubious distant cousin: C. C.
Writers at P.O. Box 963, Matteson, Illinois 60443 USA.
Thanks. And keep thinking "green" (i.e., saving the
environment by promoting paperless publishing)!!!

...for all (or most) of your running/walking/sporting
personal and/or gift-giving needs. They're great folks to
do business with. (And... I owe them another favor!

Here's one more friendly professional promotion:

If it's custom furniture you'd like in your home or
workplace, you couldn't do better than asking ERDMAN
WOODWORKING of Silverton, Colorado, to build it exactly to
your specifications. Write to Eric at

cerdman@frontier.net

And tell him "The Troubadour" sent you.
(I think I owe him a favor as well.)

[end] * * * * * * Promotional Advertisements * * * * * * *

From the 21st Century Journeyman Wizard
To His Apprenticed Class of Sage Pages:

"You bring up a very good point, Page Ten. Perhaps medical
science would benefit very much by having the capability of
making 'spare parts,' as you say, so that when something
within us becomes diseased or injured, doctors could
literally 'grow us a new one'! Eh, class? Does that sound
pretty cool?"

"Kewl!"

"We be witchoo!" they all respond in the vernacular.

"OK," continues the almost-master Wise Guy, "so where does
it stop? Everything but a brain? A heart? How about some
nearly totally deformed baby is born but--don't worry--we
can replace the entire child with all new and improved body
parts? Is THAT where all this is going, class?"

"We dunno, Wiz. You tellus."

"Well, all right I will tell you. Just look at ANY
manufacturing process these days. New cars are made, for
example, and so are most of their parts manufactured about
ten times over. If something breaks down, you can replace
it. If, years later, something breaks down, you can still
replace it by going to a junkyard and taking that same part
off another car which wasn't damaged there. Meanwhile, for
convenience, we have thousands and thousands of auto parts
stores, and almost as many junkyards."

"Yo!"

"So, what makes us think MEDICAL manufacturing will be any
different?"

"Dang, dude. We never thought about junkyards."

"Better start thinking about them. In fact, let's take the
rest of today off and go to the movies. What do you say?"

"Like, YAY!!!"

"Good. We'll check out 'A.I. (Artificial Intelligence).'
Wait till you see the junkyards in that!"

"Whoa, man. Kewl!"

"Sure, class, it's all 'artificial,' but you should see this
just the same. Instead of swapping for robot parts, try
imagining the 'after market' for people parts."

"Whoa!"

"Or, whole rebuilt people!"

"Dang, dude," pipes Page One. "I gotta buy me some
popcorn!"

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Richard's Second Full Law of Trash Bag Changing:
The emptiest cans are in the trashiest lots.

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Yesterday's Feedback:
--------------------------------

[start] * * * * * * E-mail to the Editor * * * * * * *

Subject: Re: Middle Income Richard's 3rd Millennium Almanack

Richard:

I will be traveling and taking my computer with me - and
trying to pare down all but essential messages. I would
appreciate if you would delete me from all your distribution
lists.

Thanks -

[Name withheld]

[Editor's note: This, from a long-standing personal friend
and college professor. I am presently thankful I never had
him in class.]

The cut of "the other edge of the sword" continues:

Subject: Sixteen pages????

Richard:

I just reached my 79th birth date and I am quite glad since
after receiving an e-mail from your computer with the title
"Middle Income Richard's No. 3," it is apparent to me I have
no place in the overall schema as it is developing. I know
the mode of living has changed and the younger generation is
on some strange juice or hemp weed but I have to be living
in a different era. Sort of reminded of the quaint language
we used long ago called pig-latin.

I wasted 16 pages of paper since I use the printer when I
receive e-mail and can refer to this or that message as
needed. Even so, I was lost with all the signs and symbols
in this one.

The number of individuals who received the missal is almost
beyond belief. Where the hell did you find so many? And
their necessary addresses? Your chain of contacts must go
from Matteson to New York or California or both.

Enuf for this writing, but to close....

It might be better for me, as a scholar of the past, to
issue a more typical vernacular to those folks in the list,
like-- If everybody would become enthralled or acclaimed or
adulated through a harangue, but where one or the other may
be abominated, so that each expostulates upon their own
obsession, then the jingoist, curmudgeon, and hellion might
forestall the billingsgate so prevalent in today's
infinitude.

"Uncle" Richard

[Editor's note: Richard here is not my uncle, but he is a
life-long friend of the family. He is also a retired MD.
Many (too many) years ago, while he was a brand-new intern
at some Chicago hospital, it became his lot in life to
attend to my mother at my very birth. Apparently, my father
was so overjoyed that he named me after him. Thus he is the
forerunner "Richard" of the latter-day "Richard" whose
zero-income newsletter you now see before you. And, ya see?
He don't "dig" it either.]

[end] * * * * * * E-mail to the Editor * * * * * * *

Richard's Third Full Law of Trash Bag Changing:
The cleanest hiking trail or bike path may only have one
trash can, which is surrounded by litter on the ground,
but the can itself will be empty.

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Vertical Cartoon:

"Guess Who" Hikes Down a Mountain Trail

Gotta figure a way to pump
more oil out of Alaska.
o
o

O
/<
\ _/ \
\ ` \_
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\
\

It's us or the moose, baby.
'Sides, MOOSE is all Democrats.

o
o
O
/<
\ _/ \
\ ` \_
---------
\
\

Maybe cloning's not such a bad thing after all--
for gettin' more votes.

o
o

O
>\
/ \_ /
_ / ` /
----------
/
/

Gotta find a way to okay
G.O.P. stem cells
and ban 'em from Democrats.

o
o

O
>\
/ \_ /
_ / ` /
----------
/
/

Damn Hussy-sein anyway.
o
o

O
/<
\ _/ \
\ ` \_
---------
\
\

Maybe we can liquidate
that rag-headed bastard
and confiscate his crude.

How To Write a Rap / House / Disco Song
------------------------------

LYRICS:

Simply take one word or phrase from each of the three
columns below, in order to make one line. Repeat randomly
four times. Repeat process again twice to make chorus.
Repeat last line 17 times. Don't worry if it doesn't make
sense.

Column 1 Column 2 Column 3

Move it Triple Beat the City Streets
Get Up Body Heat You be Humpin
Plump It Up Feel the Beat 'til the Night is Over
Get Down Drive Around Shake Your Meat
Shake It The Joint Is Jumpin Bustin Loose
Pump the Jam Feet Are Stompin Disco Heat
Kill it Road Kill Armored Possum